Palisades School District adopts student strip search policy

Other area districts don't allow them. Top court says there must be clear threat.

February 07, 2013|By Charles Malinchak, Special to The Morning Call

The Palisades School Board has weighed in on the sensitive issue of student searches, adopting a policy that allows strip searches when other students and the staff are believed to be in danger.

"It would have to be something extreme. ... If there's imminent danger, we would probably do what is necessary,'' Director Stephen Kunkel, who is on the board's policy review committee, said Wednesday.

Superintendent Bridget O'Connell concurred, saying, "I couldn't even fathom a situation where it would be needed."

District spokeswoman Donna Holmes said the policy was adopted on the recommendation of the Pennsylvania School Boards Association.

She said Palisades has been reviewing all of its policies for updating. The district's previous search policy was mostly limited to locker searches, she said.

But at least one parent isn't happy. Durham Township resident Stephen Willey called the policy extreme, saying it gives officials too much freedom to possibly conduct unneeded and invasive searches.

"Do you forcibly make them strip?" Willey said.

In the Lehigh Valley, district policies range from a ban on strip searches to no mention at all.

The Allentown School District allows searches that include purses, gym bags, jackets, coats, parcels, packages or other containers. It specifically prohibits strip searches.

Even though Parkland's policy does not mention strip searches, Assistant Superintendent Rod Troutman said the district does not do them. The policy calls for the extent of searches to be "reasonable."

Strip-searching, he said, "would not be reasonable."

Student strip searches have been the subject of numerous lawsuits over the years, especially in districts that used them to catch students suspected of using or dealing drugs.

Locally, in 1999, a federal lawsuit involving a teenage girl who was allegedly strip-searched by an East Penn School District nurse was settled for $12,000.

Before the settlement, U.S. District Judge Franklin Van Antwerpen ruled a jury could hear the girl's claim that the search violated her constitutional right to be free from an unlawful search.

The girl, who attended the former Emmaus Junior High, was suspected of being under the influence of illegal drugs. Van Antwerpen said it was proper to check her pupils and vital signs. But after those tests produced normal results, a reasonable person should not have forced her to remove her pants to check her legs for signs of drug use, he said.

In 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court laid down the ground rules for strip searches, ruling they could not be conducted unless there is a clear threat of danger to other students.

In that case, an Arizona eighth-grader was stripped after school officials became concerned that she had pain relievers. The court ruled the search unconstitutional. Until that decision, the high court had given districts greater leeway in conducting searches.

Palisades' policy follows the high court ruling. It states that a strip search is warranted if officials are searching for items that would present a higher level of danger to the school population than other kinds of contraband and that officials believe the items are being concealed under clothing.

The policy provides that if a search involves more than the removal of jackets, coats or other outerwear, it must be conducted "only by a staff person of the same gender as the student with at least one other staff person of the same gender present as a witness and in a location assuring privacy from observation by persons not involved in the search or of the opposite sex.''

It also states searches involving the removal of undergarments or examination beneath undergarments can only be conducted after consultation with the district solicitor.

At Wednesday's meeting, Willey said that in the event of danger, school officials should probably contact police and parents. The Durham resident said staff should not conduct searches.

O'Connell, the Palisades superintendent, said guidelines on when and how to activate a strip search will be developed and provided to administrators. They also will be made public.